January 2017
The social learning theory tested here is summarized from Akers (1977:39-68). The primary learning mechanism in so-cial behavior is operant (instrumental) conditioning in which behavior is shaped by the stimuli which follow, or are conse-quences of the behavior. Social behavior is acquired both through direct condition-ing and through imitation or modelling of others' behavior. Behavior is strengthened through reward (positive reinforcement) and avoidance of punish-ment (negative reinforcement) or weakened by aversive stimuli (positive punishment) and loss of reward (negative punishment).
Nevertheless, the combination of a long-term aim and a short-term one in our alcohol addiction overcoming model rational choice story has some potential yet. We wrote before that alcohol addiction unlike some other drugs takes time and often reaches its peak when a person is at the peak of his / her career has a high position in the society, a good salary, favorite work: those things that are weighty not only at the rational level, but also provide strong incentives for the same reward system he / she stimulates with alcohol at the same time. The alcohol addiction study often contain the idea that, statistically, the addiction affects different social strata evenly.
As Vaillant (1995) has shown, a large share of alcoholics quit drinking without treatment and without any assistance from self-help groups or radical environmental change. Although these types of personal changes are commonly referred to as “natural recovery processes,” such successes are better explained in terms of mechanisms of self-regulation than natural occurrence. They testify to the human capacity for self-regulation. Granfield and Cloud (1996) put it well when they characterized the conspicuous inattention to successful self-regulators as “the elephant that no one sees.”